Geraint Jones - Blood Forest

But the damning conditions of surrender offered one thing that a last stand could not.

Hope.

There was the hope that a Roman army would swoop in to avenge the defeat of Varus. There was the hope of escape from farm, or slave barracks. There was the smallest hope of a benevolent master. Every Roman survivor was now convincing himself that he would be the one to defy the odds and resume his former life. That he would be the one to see his homeland and town once again, and be reunited with loved ones.

Caeonius, I’m sure, would have known that slavery was a harsh sentence to inflict on his soldiers. I am equally sure that, had he known a handful would escape and survive the ordeal, he would have seen the enslavement as infinitely preferable to a final stand in which all his soldiers perished, however gloriously.

Hope. It had driven me across a continent. Now it opened Caeonius’s mouth.

‘We surrender.’

No man seemed to dare breathe in the moments following Caeonius’s surrender. The Roman soldiers held their ranks, battered shields overlapping, eyes hollow beneath steel helmets. The German tribesmen stared at their foe, desperate to finish their enemy, but wary of the wounded animal that could still kill and maim in scores.

It was Caeonius who acted first, drawing his bloodied blade from its sheath and casting it down into the wet dirt. Then, with that signal, shields, javelins and swords began to fall from Roman hands. A few men began to weep. Most stared vacantly at nothing.

It was over.

Arminius climbed back into his saddle and called something aloud in German. With fierce eyes, he repeated it with force, and I can only assume it was a savage order that his men must respect the surrender, and not butcher the Roman prisoners, as so many clearly wanted to do. I had seen surrender before, and the moments following the laying down of arms were critical. If blood spilled now, it would not stop until the last drop had run into the dirt. If calm could prevail for a time, then the Roman soldiers would live to see their enslavement.

‘Caeonius,’ Arminius then called in Latin. ‘Leave your arms here, and march your men to that camp.’ He pointed towards the army’s final marching camp, where Varus and his staff had taken their own lives the previous day.

Caeonius hesitated for a moment. He knew that once his soldiers were separated from their arms, there would be nothing to prevent a massacre.

‘Form up in ten ranks!’ the prefect finally called, realizing that he had no choice, and I watched as the desperate-looking mass of men shuffled their way into formation. Many had to be held aloft by their comrades, and I knew that the end for these wounded soldiers would be near. A crippled slave was of little use.

Eventually, the remnants of the army formed up. Knowing that they were ten ranks deep, I could now make an estimate of the cohort’s size. The mathematics left my stomach sour.

Fewer than a thousand survivors.

Fewer than a thousand from an army of seventeen and a baggage train of three.

The forest had swallowed us whole.

‘Formation!’ Caeonius called, his voice showing no recognition of the tragedy. ‘By the centre, quick march.’

Of course there was nothing quick about the shuffle of exhausted and wounded men. A few of the most stubborn held their shoulders back, with some reserve of pride, but most stumbled and staggered towards their enslavement, herded by the German warriors who followed in their wake like hungry dogs.

The army’s path to the fort brought them closer to my position, and as they came, I sought out the faces of the men I had known. Only a short time had passed between my laying eyes on Stumps, Moonface and Micon, and then Caeonius’s capitulation, and I was hopeful that my comrades had survived those final moments. And yet, try as I might, I could not see them amongst the mass of hobbled soldiery.

But I could see Arminius.

I could see him well enough, the cunt, sitting astride his war-steed like a god, his blond hair cascading over his thick shoulders, his face serene. It made me hate his treason all the more that he showed not the slightest smugness at its success. It was as if he had known all along exactly how the campaign would unfold, and so he felt no relief. Surely he knew that his actions here would shake the world, and yet… nothing. No smile. No oration. No beating of his thick chest. He simply walked his mare behind the army that he had butchered, and, in doing so, he walked it into killing range of the spear in my hand.

I knew I would not miss him from my vantage point; he was too close to have time to evade the missile. My initial movement would give away my position, but Arminius’s instinct would be to turn towards me, not shy away, and that action would present me with twice the target width to hit. My muscles were beyond fatigue, and yet they now raged with hate for this man, and so I knew they would not fail me. My aim would be true, and though it was too late for my comrades, perhaps I could do something to stop the landslide that was about to pour from Germany into Roman-occupied lands.

My grip went loose about the spear’s shaft as I considered those words: Roman-occupied lands .

Since when had I cared about Rome, Germany or any other country or tribe? With shaking hands, I knew the truth was that I did not. I was not Moonface, a patriotic chest-thumper. I was not Rufus, proud of my heritage.

Lines on the map meant nothing to me. I was wearing one uniform, but I could just as easily be wearing another.

Perhaps it was for this reason that instead of hurling the spear into Arminius’s chest, I held it limp by my side as I stepped from the trees and on to the corpse-strewn track.

‘Arminius,’ I called, though the prince was already turning to face me, his troops sprinting towards the threat with murder in their eyes.

He stopped them with a raised hand. Like a pack of hunting hounds, the German warriors waited to tear me apart at a signal from their master.

Arminius’s eyes burned into me, and then he gave the slightest shake of his head. I saw his lips move as he spoke in silent German.

I expected honeyed words from the man who had talked Governor Varus and his army to their deaths. My ego even flattered itself that he would wish to justify his treasonous actions to me.

Instead, Arminius simply looked at me with the same bemused detachment as he had done in the sacred grove. Yet again I had appeared to him as a bloodied, savage-looking thing, though now that I had given up the element of surprise, I was as little threat to the prince as a gnat to his mare.

‘You could have killed me?’ he said finally, with a gesture of his chin towards the spear in my hand.

The words were a question, the answer to which I had not fully understood myself until I replied.

‘You said that I owed you two,’ I forced from between my broken teeth. ‘On the parade square at Minden, you said that I owed you two. I won’t die in debt to you.’

And with those pathetic words of defiance, I threw my spear to the floor, and prepared for death by closing my eyes, clamping my jaw tight and squeezing my muscles so that I would not shake or shit myself as the German warriors came for me.

I expected it would be the strike of a sword into my flesh that would force me from this state of dreadful anticipation. Instead, it was a bark of the happiest laughter.

I opened my eyes.

The bastard. The bastard was smiling. He was looking at me with wonder, as gleeful as I had ever seen him.

‘I don’t want you to die, my friend.’ He beamed and chuckled, throwing himself gracefully from the saddle, and walking towards me with his hands free of weapons.